


Fish Out of Water

by irisbleufic



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Christmas, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Holiday Fic Exchange, Holidays, M/M, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's what you were, what you are, and what you must <i>become</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fish Out of Water

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2012 Good Omens Holiday Exchange.

They rent a flat in Walmgate, because it's the closest they can come to a halfway point. There's a corner shop, a goth shop, a jewelry shop, and a number of rag-tag charity shops. In the first week of autumn term, Wensleydale writes Pepper an email saying she'd love it here. Meanwhile, Brian is busy chatting with Adam online while they blow each other's World of Warcraft characters to smithereens. He tells Adam that York is a bit of all right, but the night life sucks.  
  
Wensleydale finds his departmental orientation day at University of York a revelation. He's amongst like-minded people with like-minded interests. He doesn't have to explain what he means when he refers to _Vanessa atalanta_ or _Salticus scenicus_ , and there's at least one other person he's met so far who at one time thought that _Mantis religiosa_ was the coolest insect on the planet. He learns that there's a thriving tabletop gaming group and a soc devoted entirely to Douglas Adams. Simply put, these circumstances combined suit him right down to the ground.  
  
Brian skives off his departmental orientation day at York St. John with the determined apathy that only a newly addicted gamer can summon (without even trying). Adam misses _his_ departmental orientation at Balliol, but it somehow turns out to be less consequential for him than for Brian when all of their first essay results come back four weeks later. Pepper chides him from her posh King's College lodgings: _Your parents are paying for this, you complete numpty_. Yeah: paying for the right to say he's studying Sport Development. In actuality, he's learning more about online game design in his spare time than he's ever thought possible.  
  
As flatmates, they get on all right. It's not much different from being friends from primary school through sixth-form; the only difference is that items from your personal rations cupboard go missing on a regular basis, and you find the other person's pants inexplicably mixed into your laundry. You awkwardly trade freshly laundered stowaways in the upstairs hall at 3:00 AM when one of you is just on the way to bed and the other is just getting up. A few nights a week, you share Chinese take-away from Ruby over on Gillygate and watch such underrated classics as _Back to the Future_ , _Labyrinth_ , and _Bladerunner_. You talk about the good old days back in Lower Tadfield a lot, and you have the feeling there's quite a lot you can't remember.  
  
“It was good, then,” Brian says, cracking open another can of Strongbow. “Yeah?”  
  
Wensleydale tears his attention away from the screen long enough to answer.  
  
“I suppose it was,” he concedes. “But Adam got to be in charge of everything.”  
  
“So?” Brian shrugs. “He was _ace_ at being in charge of everything. Still is.”  
  
Wensleydale considers this, chewing his lip. Onscreen, there's suddenly a lot of blood.  
  
“I don't mind being in charge for once,” he admits. “Both of us, I mean.”  
  
Brian snorts. “Going by who orders me to do the washing up—”  
  
“Oi,” Wensleydale sighs, turning up the volume. “Shut it.”  
  
“Got some cheek in you now,” Brian says, punching Wensleydale's arm. “Feisty. I like it.”  
  
Wensleydale scoots to the far end of the futon. Thus far, it has remained a sofa, having never been used by the guests from Cambridge and Oxbridge that they were sure they'd be entertaining.  
  
“Maybe we ought to turn it off. I've got a laboratory session tomorrow.”  
  
“ _Stuff_ your laboratory session,” Brian snarls, diving across the futon to wrestle the remote control away from him. “We've been plannin' this Ridley Scott marathon for weeks!”  
  
Wensleydale tries to twist away, hopes to escape with his dignity intact, and fails spectacularly. He's flat on his back, Brian is sprawled more than half on top of him, and their hands are clutching more at each other than at the remote control.  
  
“Why'd you never tell me you're bloody _brilliant_?” Wensleydale demands.  
  
“Why'd _you_ never mention your brilliant taste in films?” Brian counters.  
  
Wensleydale shrugs, and it's then that he becomes conscious of how this is far too comfortable a position, never mind that his left leg is asleep and that the fingers of his right hand are starting to cramp. He flexes them and the remote control clatters to the floor.  
  
“I don't know,” he replies stupidly. “We were always too busy being...being...”  
  
“Being _Them_ ,” Brian finishes for him. “Is that what you're saying?”  
  
“Yeah,” Wensleydale says, tracking the startled progress of Brian's eyes across his features. From this close, Brian has ghostly freckles across the bridge of his nose and sun-streaked brown hair that hasn't yet hid the evidence of summer hols in Alicante.  
  
“You were about to say something,” prompts Brian helpfully, with an unnecessary wiggle.  
  
“I was about to say that maybe it's time,” says Wensleydale, hopefully, “to just be _us_.”  
  
Grinning, Brian throws his weight hard against the futon. It collapses as he rolls backward, pulling Wensleydale with him. Now _he's_ underneath Wensleydale, and he's smiling like he's up to his waist in the old mill pond and covered in duckweed. Wensleydale thinks about all of the water features comprising his beloved campus, so very _much_ water, and then imagines taking Brian along to the next Doug Soc meeting and never hearing the end of it. He'd be pretty all right with that.  
  
And York night life, as it turns out, emphatically does _not_ suck.


End file.
